Kick the Prescription with These 3 All-Natural Sleep Aides

As we age, our body tends to need less sleep. Many people also lower the amount of energy they use throughout the day slowly over time. Both of those can add up to restless nights.

One way to alleviate those restless nights is with the help of sleep aids. But, prescription and even over-the-counter pharmaceutical sleep aides can come with unwanted side effects like constipation or diarrhea, changes in your appetite, daytime drowsiness, and more.

Luckily, there are all-natural sleep aids that help you get the rest you need when you need it without the potentially nasty side effects of the laboratory created aids.

Magnesium

Magnesium is actually a chemical element that can be found in the Period Table. It’s technically a lightweight metal. And, unlike heavy metals like lead, it’s actually something your body needs.

It helps your body with many of its natural functions like nerve transmission and bone and cell formation. It also helps your body with energy production.

For something that helps with energy production, you may be wondering how it can act as a sleep aid.

The core problem is that if you are deficient in magnesium, you can suffer a variety of symptoms. Some of them are muscle cramps, anxiety, depression, and high blood pressure. And, an ancillary effect of all of these is problems with your sleep cycle. 

If you feel you might be magnesium deficient, your family doctor can run a simple blood test and suggest a dietary or supplemental program to get your levels back to normal.

Raw Honey

Honey isn’t just sweet, delicious, and all-natural, it has a lot of health benefits attached to it as well. And, when you compare raw honey to a sweetener like sugar, you find out there are tons of differences.

When most people hear that raw honey can help them sleep better, they respond with a look of skepticism and disbelief. The major reason for that is they often place honey and sugar into the same category.

Raw honey, however, is much different than the sugar you add to coffee and tea. Regarding sleep, the first major difference is that honey is a nice balance of fructose and glucose that are independent of one another compared to table sugar’s sucrose (glucose and fructose that are bound together).

What this means for you is that honey does not give you that massive energy spike and crash that table sugar does.

Aside from not giving you energy and insulin spikes, raw honey can assist your sleep cycle by actually stabilizing your blood sugar levels, releasing your body’s melatonin which is a hormone linked to sleep, and providing your liver with enough of what it needs for a full night’s sleep.

Essential Oils

Essential oils are natural oils in a highly concentrated form that have been extracted from different flowers and plants. While they have gained massive popularity over the last few years, their usage dates back many centuries.

Just like the plants, the oils are distilled from having different therapeutic benefits, so do the oils themselves. That means not any essential oil is going to be a potentially useful sleep aid. 

Some of the common essential oils for better sleep are:

• Lavender Essential oil
• Roman Chamomile Essential oil
• Sandalwood Essential oil
• Marjoram Essential oil
• Iris Essential oil

The two main mechanisms for taking in the oils are either through your skin or through your respiratory system. Many people apply the oil of their choice to the back of their neck and shoulders. And, others prefer to use an essential oil diffuser next to their bed.

If you want to improve your sleep but don’t want to deal with all of the potentially harmful side effects of pharmaceuticals, you aren’t alone. Many others have been in your sleepless slippers. However, with the help of an all-natural sleeping aid, they were able to find dreamland in no time.